


The Silvertree

by CozyCryptidCorner



Series: Pride Month Prompts [1]
Category: Original Work, exophilia - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Exophilia, F/F, Human/Monster Romance, fae, forest spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 12:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19085212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CozyCryptidCorner/pseuds/CozyCryptidCorner
Summary: They say there is a fruit that can cure all illnesses, but it lies within the ancient forest, filled with unspeakable terrors.





	The Silvertree

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Pride Month!!
> 
> To celebrate, I am asking all of my followers to submit to me LGBT+ prompts on my [Tumblr page.](https://cozycryptidcorner.tumblr.com/) I am trying to do as many as possible! If you have a prompt, please feel absolutely free to send it to me! If I don't do it this month, I might still do it later if it's really good.

The grass-woven basket bounced against your thigh as you walk deeper into the forest, anxiety churning in your stomach. You mustn’t be hasty, though, even though urgency hangs over you as densely as the trees, you have to be careful and precise. What you seek is small, inconsequential, you are certain that you could get away with it if you are quick and clever enough. The sun is making its descent against the horizon, you have maybe only an hour of daylight left, perhaps a little longer if the Lady of Luck is on your side.

 

Whispers of something wrong begin to worm their way into your ears, a twig snapping to your side, a faint echo of laughter almost making you spin around to investigate. But you don’t, you won’t give them the satisfaction of showing fear, for the moment you do, they will cascade down around you like predators on prey. Against all the warnings of the village elders, against all the pleas of your friends and family, you drive yourself deeper, further into the wild. The mental image of your younger sister, pale and shaking with fever, drives you on with a steady determination the tricksters are unused to.

 

The sounds of water begin drowning out all the voices as you approach a waterfall, a fast-moving river your only landmark to know that you are going in the right direction. Briskly, with a bead of sweat rolling down your temple, you follow the water upstream. Your breaths come out in quick, hasty puffs, and while you try to tell yourself it’s the exercise, you know that deep down within your soul, you are terrified within an inch of your life.

 

A golden light licks at the dimming sky, just up yonder. A steady, earthy drumbeat begins to pound through the trees, the nightly festivities of the immortals now beginning. Your heart begins to hit into your throat, threatening to smash its way through your body and onto the ground, but you continue on, tears bleeding into your eyes, with even more fervor than before. You cannot wait another day, the plague always takes its victims before dawn.

 

Another twig snaps to your right. Something snickers behind your back. You lick your dry, cracking lips again, sending a dull sting through your mouth, and stare straight ahead. As if an answer to your unspoken prayers, you see a glint of silver between the branches of the trees, a glimmer that nearly almost causes you to faint with relief. Only a few more steps, you can make it that far, then you can turn around and return to your village. Keep going.

 

There it is, the Silvertree, the heart of the forest. The elders have always told its tale; that a ship, passing from the sun to the stars, dropped one of their seeds down to the earth so that their children would know where their path. Its fruits, sweeter than the berries that grow on the outskirts, heartier than a full meal of stew, are supposed to have a healing ability beyond even the gods themselves. Perhaps the fruits are also able to cure… death.

 

The whispers around you grow louder, angrily vying for your attention, but you ignore them, stepping into the clearing. There’s a strange kind of shimmer in the air, almost like a rainbow, but none of the colors seem solid or permanent, instead flowing in and out of existence. The tree itself is large, the branches spanning flowing out from their source and down like vines, leaves glinting in the dying sunlight. There, on its low hanging branches, is what you seek.

 

The fruit you reach for is small, perhaps not even ripe, and you hesitate. A feeling of  _wrongness_  overtakes your whole being, not like someone is watching your movements, but more like someone is judging your decisions, and you are not making the correct ones. Mouth dry, teary-eyed, you glance to the ground in defeat and notice a single, lonely fruit, almost buried in the grass. Shyly, as though it might bite, you reach down, your fingers feeling around the edges, and grasp it firmly.

 

The forest goes silent.

 

The fruit has no blemishes, no spots. It feels firm against your grip, not melting with rot in the heat of summer. This should be perfect, you hope, spinning around to run all the way back through the forest. As you take your first step, though, you run right into something. No, you realize with rising panic as you stumble back. Not something,  _someone._  You look up at the face of a deer skull, long, delicate horns spindling out from either side of the head.

 

“Um… might I make a bargain?” You ask, sweat beading on your forehead.

 

“You trample through the sacred forest, take the fruit from the sacred tree, and have the gall to ask  _me_  for a bargain?” Her voice is almost soothing enough to put you at ease, but still, the hairs on your neck and arms raise at the sense of danger. “Very well, what will it be, your life?”

 

“You can have my life, I don’t care what you will do with it.” It takes everything within you not to shake like a leaf in a thunderstorm. “All I ask in return is that I can go back to my village, just once, and give this to someone who needs it more than the creatures here that gorge on these fruits as much as they wish.”

 

For a moment, the goddess is silent, most likely pondering exactly how she will kill you for your impertinence.  _Maybe I shouldn’t have gone that far,_  you think nervously, fingernails digging into your palms, but before you get a chance to spiral into anxiety, her dark hand reaches up for her face. No, not her face, you realize as she peels the skull away, a mask. Beneath, you see the most beautiful pair of charcoal eyes that have ever bothered to glance in your direction. You don’t think the High Prince, a descendant of the gods, could even compare, though he brags as though he might.

 

Her voice is stern. “And am I supposed to expect you to return? Merely by your word? Humans are known to be liars, girl.”

 

 _When we have good reason to be._  “I suppose you might come with me, then, to drag me back kicking and screaming if I were to resist. Or you could put an awful curse on my village, they’ll know it was my doing and burn me to appease your kind. Or-”

 

“I will come in the dead of night and take your special person instead.”

 

That shuts you up.

 

Her hands fold together, her eyes staring down at you as though you aren’t even worth her attention. “Very well.” She advances three steps, grabbing your shoulders firmly and planting a kiss atop your head. “You have my blessing to return to your village in one piece. However,” she places both hands on either side of your face, holding you firmly, “should you not be back in the forest by nightfall on the morrow, I will take someone else to be in your place.”

 

Terrified, you nod in understanding.

 

“Go, then.” She calmly steps away from you, chestnut curls bobbing in the breeze. The moonlight glints against her horns, a grim reminder that the safety you had pretended to be under was nothing more than your imagination. “And when you return, call for Medeia. I will hear, and none of the others will try to break what is mine.”

 

“Ye-yes, I understand.”

 

“Then go.”

 

You run.

 

Back through the forest, the branches cutting at your legs and arms, through the brush, the voices increasingly silent as you move your legs faster than you’ve ever had before, basket long forgotten in your panic. Before you even realize it, you burst from the thrush, out into the clearing that holds your village. You barely hesitate, bolting in the direction of your home and nearly breaking through the door. Your family stumbles back, each looking like you’ve hit them in the face.

 

“What have you done?” Your mother cries, her face ashen and pale.

 

“It does not matter,” you say with more calm than you feel, walking over to where your sister lies, deathly gray, but still breathing. You sit by her side as you begin to mash the fruit into an easy to swallow pulp, gently spooning it into her mouth once you are sure it is the correct consistency.

 

Her fever breaks at dawn.

 

You are already packing by then, gathering what little you have into a small knapsack, unable to look anyone else in the eye. But your sister is safe from the pestilence, and now you must leave. You kiss your mother goodbye, confident you will never see her again, and walk out through the threshold of your home.

 

The forest calls for you, like a hook beneath your skin, and so you leave.

**Author's Note:**

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